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Excerpted from Marilyn Yarbrough
with Crystal Bennett, Cassandra and the "Sistahs": the
Peculiar Treatment of African American Women in the Myth of Women as
Liars Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 626-657, 634-655 (Spring
2000)(254 footnotes omitted)

In colonial times, white men often viewed
white women with suspicion and distrust. They associated white women
with sexuality. However, as time passed, white women were no longer
portrayed as sexual temptresses. They became celebrated as the
"nobler half of humanity" and depicted as goddesses rather
than sinners. White women were thereafter represented as virtuous, pure
and innocent. The historical and social experiences of African women
during slavery resulted in numerous images that defined African American
women as deviant.

For centuries, African American women have
been contrasted with white women. While the Victorian concept of
"true womanhood" defined white women as possessing
unquestionable moral character, African American women were defined as
immoral and sinful. To white men of the era, women of all races were
considered property to use and abuse. The abuse took different forms.
White women, though often not subject to the same degree of physical and
psychological abuse meted out to women of color, were thought of as the
property of their husbands or fathers. To uphold the honor of white
women, white males felt a need to protect "their" women from
others. Slave women, often separated from their husbands, brothers and
sons, depended on protection, if any would be forthcoming, from their
"owners." These and other differences between how African
American and white women were perceived and treated stem from the fact
that historically, African Americans have not received the same
protection of the law as their white counterparts. In addition, African
American women are forced to combat the dual stereotypes of race and
gender. As women, they realized that they could not presume that the law
would provide sufficient protection for them. As African American women,
they realized that they could not demand such protection. There is a
hierarchy when credibility issues arise in the courts. It is not only a
simple hierarchy of men over women, but it is one where white women are
found to be more credible than African American women.

In an insightful article about victims of
domestic violence, Professor Linda Ammons describes how the conduct of
one African American woman was negatively contrasted with a white
woman's conduct. Pamela Hill, a twenty-nine-year-old African American
woman, lived with her abusive boyfriend, Roy Chaney. One night, Chaney
had been drinking and began beating Hill. Hill found a knife and they
struggled over it. Hill suffered serious cuts before fatally injuring
Chaney. Hill testified that she had tried to get Chaney out of her
apartment, "[b]ut she couldn't just throw him out into the
cold." Evidence at trial showed that a year before this incident,
Hill had stabbed Chaney. The prosecutor therefore deemed the
relationship to be "mutually combative." During the
prosecutor's closing argument, he remarked: "[A] lot of people
would have you believe Pamela Hill is carrying the banner of Nicole
Simpson." It was an obvious reference comparing Nicole Simpson's
assumed purity and honesty with Pamela Hill's violence and dishonesty.

A stereotype persists of African American
women as immoral and therefore less deserving of protection from
violence or sexual exploitation. In 1744, Edward Long, in an attempt to
support slavery, published his conclusions about African women. He
characterized them as "ignorant, crafty, treacherous, thievish, and
mistrustful."

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Thanks to Derrick Bell and his pioneer work:
Race, Racism and American Law (1993).